IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0242456.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investigation of superspreading COVID-19 outbreak events in meat and poultry processing plants in Germany: A cross-sectional study

Author

Listed:
  • Roman Pokora
  • Susan Kutschbach
  • Matthias Weigl
  • Detlef Braun
  • Annegret Epple
  • Eva Lorenz
  • Stefan Grund
  • Juergen Hecht
  • Helmut Hollich
  • Peter Rietschel
  • Frank Schneider
  • Roland Sohmen
  • Katherine Taylor
  • Isabel Dienstbuehl

Abstract

Since May 2020, several COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in the German meat industry despite various protective measures, and temperature and ventilation conditions were considered as possible high-risk factors. This cross-sectional study examined meat and poultry plants to assess possible risk factors. Companies completed a self-administered questionnaire on the work environment and protective measures taken to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Multivariable logistic regression analysis adjusted for the possibility to distance at least 1.5 meters, break rules, and employment status was performed to identify risk factors associated with COVID-19 cases. Twenty-two meat and poultry plants with 19,072 employees participated. The prevalence of COVID-19 in the seven plants with more than 10 cases was 12.1% and was highest in the deboning and meat cutting area with 16.1%. A subsample analysis where information on maximal ventilation rate per employee was available revealed an association with the ventilation rate (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 0.996, 95% CI 0.993–0.999). When including temperature as an interaction term in the working area, the association with the ventilation rate did not change. When room temperatures increased, the chance of testing positive for COVID-19 (AOR 0.90 95% CI 0.82–0.99) decreased, and the chance for testing positive for COVID-19for the interaction term (AOR 1.001, 95% CI 1.000–1.003) increased. Employees who work where a minimum distance of less than 1.5 m between workers was the norm had a higher chance of testing positive (AOR 3.61; 95% CI 2.83–4.6). Our results further indicate that climate conditions and low outdoor air flow are factors that can promote the spread of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols. A possible requirement for pandemic mitigation strategies in industrial workplace settings is to increase the ventilation rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Roman Pokora & Susan Kutschbach & Matthias Weigl & Detlef Braun & Annegret Epple & Eva Lorenz & Stefan Grund & Juergen Hecht & Helmut Hollich & Peter Rietschel & Frank Schneider & Roland Sohmen & Kath, 2021. "Investigation of superspreading COVID-19 outbreak events in meat and poultry processing plants in Germany: A cross-sectional study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-14, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0242456
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242456
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242456
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242456&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0242456?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Azzam, Azzeddine & Gren, Ing-Marie & Andersson, Hans, 2023. "Comparative resilience of US and EU meat processing to the Covid19 pandemic," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    2. Yiqun Chen & Helen Beattie & Andrew Simpson & Gillian Nicholls & Vince Sandys & Chris Keen & Andrew D. Curran, 2023. "A COVID-19 Outbreak in a Large Meat-Processing Plant in England: Transmission Risk Factors and Controls," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(19), pages 1-18, September.
    3. Thiermann, Insa & Latacz-Lohmann, Uwe, 2023. "Improving the living and working conditions of migrant seasonal workers - Assessing consumer preferences for hypothetical, domestic, fair trade apples," 97th Annual Conference, March 27-29, 2023, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 334569, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0242456. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.